Witch's Oath

by Terry Goodkind

  WITCH’S

  OATH

  BY TERRY GOODKIND

  THE SWORD OF TRUTH SERIES

  Wizard’s First Rule

  Stone of Tears

  Blood of the Fold

  Temple of the Winds

  Soul of the Fire

  Faith of the Fallen

  The Pillars of Creation

  Naked Empire

  Debt of Bones

  Chainfire

  Phantom

  Confessor

  The Omen Machine

  The First Confessor

  The Third Kingdom

  Severed Souls

  Warheart

  THE CHILDREN OF D’HARA

  The Scribbly Man

  Hateful Things

  Wasteland

  Witch’s Oath

  Into Darkness (March 2020)

  THE NICCI CHRONICLES

  Death’s Mistress

  Shroud of Eternity

  Siege of Stone

  THE ANGELA CONSTANTINE SERIES

  Trouble’s Child

  The Girl in the Moon

  Crazy Wanda

  The Law of Nines

  Nest

  TERRY

  GOODKIND

  WITCH’S

  OATH

  A Children of D’Hara Novella

  Episode 4

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published by Head of Zeus in 2020

  Copyright © Terry Goodkind, 2020

  The moral right of Terry Goodkind to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781789541311

  ISBN (E): 9781789541304

  Author photo: Sandy Aquila Photography

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  WITCH’S

  OATH

  Contents

  By Terry Goodkind

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  About the Author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  1

  Kahlan’s scream not only felt as if it ripped Richard’s soul, it overwhelmed him with shock and terror. He couldn’t understand or remember how he had come to be hanging in a room full of skinned corpses also hanging by their wrists from the ceiling, but he realized it had to be a spell of some sort cast by the witch man, Moravaska Michec. More than that, what had happened or how it had happened didn’t really matter. All that mattered was what was, now.

  A quick glance to his left showed Shale, manacles around her wrists, likewise hanging on a chain attached to the ceiling and facing in the same direction he was. She appeared to be unconscious and so could be of no help.

  The same distance to his right and facing in the same direction, toward all the hanging corpses, Kahlan struggled in panic at what was happening, at what was about to happen. The smell of all the dead bodies hanging in a grid pattern throughout the room was not only sickening, it was overpowering.

  Despite how much Kahlan thrashed around, making her wrists bleed all the more as the manacles cut into her flesh, Michec had a firm grip on her flesh, with his fat thumb on the outside and two fingers in under the slit he had cut in the skin at the side of her throat so that he could begin skinning her alive.

  Richard clearly remembered Michec saying he had spelled the room to block their gift. That had to be the reason she hadn’t used her power on him. The thought of Moravaska Michec skinning Kahlan alive was more than Richard could take. He tried to reach his own gift, but when he did, it felt as if nothing was there. He simply felt empty.

  As long as Michec’s spell blocked their gift, his gift could be of no help.

  Directly across from Richard, Vika, as naked as Kahlan, hung helpless in manacles facing him. Despite the agony she was in from the gash Michec had made in her abdomen to pull out a length of her intestines, and the Agiel he had pushed into the open wound to increase the torture, she was clearly distraught watching Kahlan in the clutches of that evil man. A man who had once owned Vika.

  “Master,” Vika called out in a weak voice, but a voice that Michec heard.

  Annoyed, he turned a frown back over his shoulder at her, expecting to know why she would interrupt him.

  “Master,” Vika managed again in a shaky voice.

  “What!” he shouted in anger at being interrupted before he could begin skinning Kahlan alive.

  “I’m trying to warn you. You’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  The witch man’s expression darkened, but curiosity caused him to take a step back from Kahlan. He wiped his bloody fingers on his filthy robes as he turned toward Vika. His blocky features were tight with displeasure at being called away from what he was so eager to do to Kahlan.

  Richard sagged in the manacles with relief that Vika had managed to stop him, if only for a moment, from what he had been about to do. Kahlan sagged as she watched, fearing his return.

  Michec moved closer so that he could hear Vika’s weak voice. “Warn me about what?”

  “Master, it is my duty to tell you that you have made a dangerous mistake.”

  “What mistake?” When she failed to answer immediately, he pushed her Agiel in a little deeper, making her gasp as her head tipped back in agony. “What mistake!”

  Richard could see the muscles in her legs tense. She clenched her teeth and held her breath for a moment, doing her best to endure the increase in agony caused by her Agiel.

  Panting to get her breath, Vika finally brought her head back down. “The same mistake made by Darken Rahl. The same mistake made by Hannis Arc. The same mistake made by Emperor Sulachan. The same mistake made by so many others.”

  Moravaska Michec, angry to be told he was making a mistake of any kind, stepped close and grabbed her Agiel. He twisted it back and forth, sweeping it around inside the wound in her belly, making her cry out involuntarily as her eyes rolled up in her head with the pain, unable to endure it, yet unable to do anything to stop it. Her legs trembled; her feet shook. Richard ached at seeing how helpless she was.

  Michec released the Agiel and gripped one of the ropy braids of his beard between a dirty finger and th
umb. One brow arched over a dark, angry eye. “What mistake would that be?”

  Her muscles stood out iron hard from the torment of the Agiel jutting from the open wound. She finally managed to gasp in enough air to speak. She stared at him with wet, sky-blue eyes. “The mistake … of underestimating Lord Rahl.”

  Michec gestured irritably toward Richard. “Him? He is not worthy to be called Lord Rahl.”

  “Call him what you will. Call him a mere woodsman if you will. But it is my duty to warn you, Master, that you have made a fatal mistake.”

  “First, I underestimated him, and now I’ve made a fatal mistake?”

  Her jaw trembling in pain, tears running down her cheeks, Vika nodded.

  Michec’s brow drew down over his cruel eyes. His arm lifted in a grand gesture. “And what fatal mistake do you imagine I’ve made?”

  Vika had to pause to swallow back her agony. “You did not kill him when you had the chance. Richard Rahl does not make the mistake of trying to teach his enemies lessons. He does not keep them alive to lecture them and gloat. He simply kills them.”

  Even though Vika was advising Michec to kill him, Richard had faith that she was doing it for good reason. He realized it was a distraction to make Michec stop before it was too late and he started skinning Kahlan alive, even though it meant he would turn his formidable wrath on her. Richard feared for Vika but was beyond grateful for her intervention.

  When he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, a quick glance revealed that Shale was at last awake. In that quick glance they shared, they both knew the despair of their situation.

  Michec stared at the Mord-Sith briefly, as if considering her words, or possibly what more painful torture he could inflict, then huffed a brief chuckle. The snakelike braids of his beard swung around with him as he turned and stared at Richard a moment. The greasy spikes of salt-and-pepper hair stood out against the pale greenish light from the glass spheres around the room. Michec flicked a hand dismissively toward Richard as he looked back at Vika.

  “I appreciate your loyalty in trying to warn me of danger, but you underestimate me. The famous and powerful Lord Rahl is quite helpless against me. No one escapes a witch’s oath.”

  “He is gifted. I have seen him kill with his gift.”

  Michec’s derisive smile distorted his coarse features. “Gifted? I’ve blocked his gift”—he thumped a fist against his own puffed-up chest—“the same as I blocked your ability to use your Agiel against me, and I blocked the ability of the other Mord-Sith, and I blocked this witch woman’s gift, and I blocked the Mother Confessor’s power. No one but me can use their power in this room. So, you see? You are quite wrong. He is hardly a danger to me, now. His questionable ‘powers’ won’t help him. He is under the decree of a witch’s oath.”

  “I am telling you, Master, you have made a fatal mistake. You arrogantly think to give him a show of your superiority, and in that arrogance, you have let your chance to kill him slip away. You will not get another chance.”

  Michec turned a look of raw hatred toward Richard. He slowly closed the distance from Vika, his glare fixed on Richard the whole time. He paused briefly to glance once over at Kahlan with lust for what was being delayed. She glared back with loathing and defiance. He smiled, pleased by that look. He finally came to a stop before Richard to look up at his helpless prize.

  “Dangerous, are you?” He planted his fists on his hips as he glared up at Richard with contempt. “Then maybe I should take the advice of my loyal Mord-Sith, and—”

  As hard as he could, Richard kicked the witch man in the face. His boot connected with bone. Richard didn’t know if it was skull or jawbone, but Michec’s dead weight toppled back. He landed hard on his back and lay motionless, sprawled on the floor, his arms out to the side. He looked to be out cold.

  Her brow bunching with the effort, Vika flashed Richard a shaky smile through her pain. “I bought you time. Now get out of here.”

  “Richard …” Kahlan said.

  He looked where she was looking and saw the dark shapes of the Glee cautiously stepping out of the shadows of the hanging, skinless corpses. Like those corpses, Richard also hung helpless from manacles around his wrists. Those creatures would not wait for Michec to come around and finally finish his work with Kahlan so they could have her.

  He knew they would take the opportunity to have what they had come for—the babies in Kahlan’s womb.

  2

  Richard looked from the dark, glistening shapes of the cautious Glee back in among the shadows and hanging corpses to the unconscious form sprawled on the floor in front of him. Had he been able to brace against something solid when he kicked Michec in the head he might have been able to kill him. Hanging helpless, he had done the best he could. At the least, the big man was out cold for the moment.

  Richard knew he had only a small window of time before either Michec came around or the Glee decided that this was their opportunity to take what they wanted.

  Richard pressed his knees together and lifted his legs out in front of him, then let them fall back. He did it several more times to get his whole body to start swinging back and forth, each time pumping his legs to get each arcing movement higher and higher. The chain grated in protest as the top link pivoted from the fat eyebolt in the ceiling. Once he was swinging back and forth as much as he could, he threw his legs around to his right and kept contorting his body, changing that pendulum motion to rotation. As he swung his legs, he twisted his whole body around, swinging faster and faster, building momentum.

  Once all the slack was gone out of the chain as he continued to turn it with his body, the links couldn’t resist the strain and they started folding over on top of one another. The more he spun, the more it twisted the chain and the harder it was to keep the rotation going. As he spun the chain, it continually increased the pressure of the manacles on his wrists. They cut painfully into the flesh. He gripped the chain above the manacles to try to take some of the pressure off his wrists as he spun. Richard ignored the pain and kept swinging his legs around and around to force the chain to turn, hoping something would have to give way. As he did, the links continued to bunch and knot up.

  Suddenly, the pressure was too much, and the eyebolt in the ceiling beam let out a snapping sound as the rusty threads finally broke their bond to the wood. With the threads broken free, the twisting force caused the bolt to begin to turn, unscrewing it from the wooden beam. The age and corrosion of the threads caused them to want to bind up and made it difficult to keep up the turning force. Despite the difficulty, Richard knew he couldn’t stop, or he might never get it going again. He kept swinging his legs around and around to keep the eyebolt unscrewing. He didn’t dare rest for fear it would bind up and stick.

  Although Michec still lay unconscious on the floor, Richard knew the man could come around at any moment. But right then there was a bigger concern. With each rotation he could see the Glee advancing across the room to get to Kahlan. He knew that with one powerful swipe of their claws they could rip her open. By Kahlan’s rapid breathing, he knew she was well aware of that imminent threat.

  All of a sudden, the turning eyebolt broke free of the beam. Richard crashed to the floor. He quickly scrambled to his feet as several of the dark shapes were going for Kahlan.

  He grabbed the heavy chain in both hands and started swinging it around over his head. The first two Glee saw that he was now free and a threat, so they turned away from Kahlan toward him, eager to attack. Richard whipped the chain around and cracked it against the side of the head of one of them. The big eyebolt at the end of the chain split its skull and sent the creature sprawling.

  Before the second could get to him, he swung the chain again. Because the second Glee raced in closer, he couldn’t hit it in the head with the eyebolt at the end of the chain. Instead, the chain caught the side of its neck. The heavy eyebolt and the rest of the chain continued their flight, and the chain wrapped twice around the creature’s neck. Richard
immediately yanked the chain before the Glee could grab it or get its balance. The force of that pull twisted its head around, breaking its neck. Like the first one, the second fell dead before being able to vanish.

  Suddenly there were more Glee coming for both him and Kahlan. He shortened his grip on the chain and stood far enough in front of her that he wouldn’t accidentally hit her as he continued swinging it around. The speed of the heavy chain was deadly. He took down the Glee as fast as they could come.

  “Shale!” Kahlan yelled. “Do something to help him!”

  “My gift doesn’t work any more than yours does,” the sorceress called back. “Don’t you remember? Michec blocked our power in this room.”

  Richard knew there would be no help coming. It was all up to him to stop the threat or Kahlan would die. They all would die.

  As masses of the Glee converged and all came for him, he threw himself into the battle. He kept the chain spinning overhead fast as he could, whipping it against the creatures as soon as they were close enough. The eyebolt at the end of the chain whistled as it swept through the air. Almost as fast as he downed one and another got close enough, he cracked the heavy eyebolt against its skull. Most slowed and stayed back out of range. Others came for him, thinking they could duck under and evade the chain. He saw sharp white teeth snapping at his face. He caught the chain and doubled it over so he could swing it at them like a bat. That doubled the weight of each impact.

  As he was fighting off a number of Glee at the same time, one of them somehow suddenly got in close. Before it could claw him or bite his face, Richard threw a loop of the chain over its head and around its neck. He put his knee between the thing’s shoulder blades and hauled back on the chain, letting out a yell with the effort until he felt and heard the windpipe crush in. Once it did, he kicked another of the tall, dark creatures back and immediately hit it in the head with the doubled-over chain.

  Richard lost himself in a world of seemingly endless, bloody battle. The rhythm of what he was doing soon became what he knew so well. It became the dance with death.